BJP TODAY

February 16--28, 2005 - Vol. 24, No. 4

Who Rules AP
Congress or Naxals?

The Congress government's decision to lift the ban on the People's War Group in Andhra Pradesh has created a frightening situation, with the naxals running a parallel government in several parts of the state, writes Dr. T.H. Chowdary, Chairman of Pragna Bharati, AP.

Post May 2004, Andhra Pradesh is fast heading towards "Biharification". This is a new phrase, and no malice towards the great land of Bihar is meant. A story goes that once a Japanese delegation visited Patna and met with the then Chief Minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav. They said, "Bihar is a wonderful land, the land of the great Buddha and innumerable Viharas. And of the famed ancient university of Nalanda. The land is so fertile that you have to just sow to reap a bumper harvest. This is indeed the land of gold and honey. If you give us a chance for two years, we will make Bihar superior to Japan; more prosperous, productive and world-beating".

Lalooji replied, "I am not impressed by your claim that you'll turn Bihar into Japan. I can do one better. Give me Japan for just 6 weeks, not for two years, and I can turn it into another Bihar".

Bihar today stands for lawlessness, kidnapping, private armies and government's collusion with all kinds of criminals and the withering away of the organs of the state. Localized parallel governments are extorting taxes, administering instant justice, and enforcing their own order. Of course, in such a state, anti-social elements are having absolute freedom to facilitate illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis of a particular community in order to change the demography as in West Bengal and in Assam. In addition to all these armies and todo-phodo gangs based upon caste affinity, there are also the various brands of Maoists, wonderfully thriving in this lawless State. They are working in close contact with different brands of Marxist armed revolutionaries over vast tracts in India, coordinating their training and the acquisition and distribution of arms.

Over 140 districts (about 1/3 of India ) are now having some Maoist Naxalites armed groups unleashing armed actions with the ultimate aim of establishing a Marxist communist dictatorship of the proletariat as in the former USSR, Peoples' (communist) Republic of China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea.

Post May 2004, Andhra Pradesh now appears to be on the way to Biharification. In the run-up to the elections to the Lok Sabha and state Legislature, there was unannounced alliance between the various Peoples' War Groups (including the Communist Party of United States of India, a Khammam based organization) and the (Sonia) Congress. It is not for the first time that the alliance of the PWG was sought by contending parties in Andhra Pradesh. In the last elections however, a tripartite alliance between the Congress and TRS- and the PWG groups was forged. The PWG groups have expressed open support for the separation of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. Significantly, the "aboveground" communist parties, namely the CPI and CPI(M), are stridently against the break-up of the composite state of Andhra Pradesh. But even then they had no difficulty in forming an alliance with the Congress.

There was a determined on slaught of all these parties and groups against the TDP-BJP combine, especially because some of these elements have been starved of power and were getting pauperized and if they had not won in the elections and got power in 2004, they would have been so financially bankrupt that their chances to win the elections in future will be nil. That is why not only they were ferociously opposed but were able to forge a winning alliance. They were also helped by many elements among government servants as these were finding it very exacting to work to the standards and discipline demanded by the chief executive officer Sri Chandrababu Naidu of the State. The Congress seems to have told the PWG that there would be talks between the PWG and the government so that the ban on the former could be lifted and they could work openly.

In fulfillment of the promises made by the Congress to its allies, the various PWGs , there were talks. There was a delegation of theirs which was lodged in the state guest house. The government formed a negotiating team headed by its Home Minister. The talks were so publicized as though they were in the nature of between a government and a government to be brought into being, as between two regimes. The talks had a glorious halo. The negotiators (PWG leaders) were lionized by sympathetic journalists. There were receptions to them. Thousands of citizens landed up at their door, giving petitions to the leaders of the PWG for redressal of their grievances, grievances which could not be looked into by the elected governments for years.

Preparatory to the talks, government instructed its Police not to comb the areas suspected to be sanctuaries and command and control and operation centers of the revolutionaries. For a while, the encounters between the police and armed PWG ceased. After the first round of talks, the revolutionary leaders were facilitated to peacefully go back to their lairs. The talks almost reached a stalemate on the issue of the PWG cadres being required not to carry arms while they were moving in villages for their propaganda for recruitment and training and fund collection drives. That is why the second round of talks are not taking place. The understanding not to have encounters and not combing the stalking grounds seems to have broken down.

What the citizens of Andhra Pradesh in about ten districts are experiencing is the terrific and terrorising presence and operations of the PWG. The ban that was imposed earlier was not renewed after its expiry. Therefore, the PWGs are within the law in organizing public meetings, rallies and commemorations of the heroes that had given their lives for the glorious cause of the toiling masses. Many memorials are ceremonially built in different parts of the State to those who were killed in encounters while waging the revolutionary movement to defend and advance the interests of the toiling masses.

What the government could never do, seems to be implemented by the PWG. Educated unemployed are promised guaranteed work at Rs.1,000 per month. Tens of thousands are now drawn into the scheme. The funds for implementing this scheme are collected by demands served by these people at the behest of the almost parallel government-like organisation of the PWG, on corrupt government officials and businessmen who had amassed wealth by exploitation of workers and by defrauding the state and making super profits. Unofficial police reports say that tens of crores of Rupees are being collected by these parallel government-like organizations.

It is estimated that over 40,000 people had been just drawn in to the employment guarantee scheme for the jobless unemployed educated. These are all instructed in and instilled with revolutionary Marxism, Leninism-Maoism. The PWGs are absolutely honest in publicly and stridently asserting that there would be no true reforms and social justice from the government's controlled by bourgeois parties. Ultimately the armed actions of the PWG will, through the revolutionary battles of workers, bring in a government truly of the toiling masses. They are asserting that the surplus land of landlords above the land holding limits and government lands as well as temple lands must be distributed to the landless. While government is wanting to appoint official land distribution committees, the PWG is designating what it calls Peoples Land Distribution committees, composed of their own cadres and associates.

In many a town, the PWG offices are extremely busy. Hundreds of aggrieved citizens, especially the poor and the powerless are flocking to their offices submitting their grievances and injustices that have been heaped upon them and the utter unconcern of government officials to whom they had made representations earlier. It is likely that many of these grievances will be settled; not according to the dictum "the law will take its own course" and the "government will take its own (eternal) time" but according to canons of peoples' justice meted out by the revolutionary cadres of the PWG. Many a law-abiding citizen, especially the poor who cannot engage lawyers or to whom government servants are totally impervious and unapproachable and unconcerned may get rough and ready justice from the PWG and its associates.

The Police seems to be smarting under humiliation for, they are verbally counseled to refrain from any action against the lawless activities of the PWG. They seem to be collecting vast amount of information in regard to the collection of "taxes", the recruitment of cadres and the detailing of those under the alternate employment guarantee scheme. Many an elected office-holder in the rural areas had been prevailed upon to resign. Those politicians who are opposed to or not with the PWG and their associates are taking shelters in towns. A senior minister and even the Pradesh Congress chief has publicly said that they agree with the programs and agenda of the PWG but that the latter should not resort to violence and should not carry arms. They would like to carry out the agenda of the PWG, like land distribution under the leadership of their own government which of course is not acceptable to the PWG;. for, never has any party or any leader said that he is not working for the poor and that he would not do justice to the toiling masses but despite such protestations and profusion of oft-expressed dedication and devotion to the service of the poor, little amelioration is evidenced.

Seeing the increase in lawlessness, political murders, and elimination of the enemies of the people, it appears that Andhra Pradesh is being fast Biharified. Just as jails in Bihar have become command and control centers through use of cell phones and other devices for gangsters and criminals to carry out their operations without any hindrance from government organs, so are some jails in Andhra Pradesh becoming operational and control centers for elimination of political foes, as highlighted by the assassination of an MLA, Sri Paritala Ravi in Anantapur. The US Ambassador to India on a recent visit to Hyderabad told pressmen that lawlessness and assassinations would affect foreign investment in Hyderabad.

Just as such murderers in Bihar and UP have never been brought to justice, so not the murderers and their motivators be brought to book in Biharified States. Today, as elsewhere in some states, there are people trained and paid for falsely admitting to have committed the crime and for retracting their confessions so that the investigations are totally obfuscated and the charge-sheets can never be concluded with judicially satisfying evidence. There will be verdicts that the "crime was true but the perpetrators could not be found" for want of strict and unassailable evidence. Andhra Pradesh is also becoming the ground for training of revolutionary cadres in other states where PWG groups are banned and they cannot move with arms in their hands and on their body among the people.